Posted
by
samzenpuson Tuesday November 23, 2010 @04:05PM
from the we're-going-to-need-more-whipped-cream dept.

Dr. Alan Hirsch, Director of Chicago's Smell and Taste Treatment and Research Center, says the key to a man's heart, and other parts, is pumpkin pie. Out of the 40 odors tested in Hirsch's study, a mixture of lavender and pumpkin pie got the biggest rise out of men ages 18 to 64. That particular fragrance was found to increase penile blood flow by an average of 40%. "Maybe the odors acted to reduce anxiety. By reducing anxiety, it acted to remove inhibitions," said Hirsch.

It's a half truth. Eating lots of turkey will indeed make you sleepy due to the tryptophan content. However, this only works if you don't eat any other proteins... and there is a fair amount in the rest of the food. As far as a Thanksgiving dinner in toto goes, it is indeed the overeating that makes you sleepy. A little bit from rerouting resources to digest those 3,000 calories (no really, that's the AVERAGE calorie load in an American Thanksgiving feast) and a fair amount due to insulin shock from all

Oh yeah, I forgot that there is irony in part of the mechanism behind how insulin shock leads to drowsiness. Insulin triggers uptake of a large number of amino acids into muscle tissue. One of the few amino acids whose uptake does not increase is... tryptophan. This leads to a higher ration of plasma tryptophan levels, so it is then preferentially transferred across the blood/brain barrier. This then allows higher than normal production of serotonin and melatonin, which then depresses the sympathetic nervous system leading to drowsiness. So, it is tryptophan that triggers the drowsiness, but not necessarily dietary intake.

Eating turkey or other high tryptophan foods within a moderate sized meal will not, however lead to drowsiness. The other amino acids contained in the food ensure that the relative ratio of tryptophan doesn't increase enough to cause drowsiness. Eating turkey by itself can cause enough of a spike to lead to drowsiness.

Of course the whole thing is probably even more complicated than that, and I'm sure you'll find that there is a perfect storm of factors involved that lead to thanksgiving post-prandial somnolence. Working hard all day to get things just right, travel, kids running around, rapidly declining sunlight levels, stress of upcoming shopping madness, eating by candlelight, a warm fire and heat turned up a little bit for guests would all add on to any dietary induced slumber. And then there's watching the Lions get beat yet again.

Haha! Because women are gold-diggers rather than people with diverse and complex attractions and that's why you they sleep with other, richer men and not you! Classic!...Wait, they also find penniless badasses attractive? Brb, reevaluating.

Whether they admit it or not, women seek men who will contribute something to offspring. For some, what they seek is financial security. Why else would we have terms like "Good provider." when they discuss potential mates? Other women prefer physicality, a strong man will make strong children who will have a good chance at survival.

When you learn to read the signs that they put out, you know when to pass on a woman that would be a waste of your time or how to manipulate her perception of you to get closer t

Reminds me of this Rorschach test. "What do you see here?" "People having sex." "And this one?" People having sex" "And the next one?" "The same".You seem to have a very dirty mind?- Me? You are the one showing me all those dirty images!

As I see it there is a possible (or even probable) confounding here in that a possible alternate cause could be conditioning. Do American men often get laid on thaksgiving? What feelings does the smell of pumpkin pie evoke? For me, none whatsoever. I've never smelled or tasted pumpkin pie.If so, then the smell of thanksgiving may be triggering their conditioned response.Science reporters, learn science so you can report what is needed (like what co

American women usually spend all morning cooking the meal, and then American men spend all afternoon/evening sleeping. Doubt there's much sex going on after stuffing themselves silly with all that delicious food. Possible, but definitely not the norm.

No, I never been to a McDonalds there -- or rather, I entered one, saw a monstrously dirty place that stank and quickly ran away. Heck, in a backwards place like Poland McDonalds are safe food, among the better fast food places, priced so the poor can't afford to eat there (or at least couldn't ~10 years ago, things change fast) -- yet in the US they seem to be the lowest of the low.

My sample comes mostly from going out several times with people from that university I've been to for the summer, and trying

Funny, the authentic German foods I've tried I found disgusting. I detest authentic Italian, French food is pretty but tastless, and I fail at understanding how the English haven't all starved to death. Same with the authentic Indian restaurants. I do like the authentic Chinese restaurants, and I find the Mexican places to be fair to middlin'.

You don't think that it might have something to do with being socialized to the type of food you grew up with? Nawh! Much better for your karma to bash American f

So McDonald's should be priced so the poor can't eat there (or so you seem to suggest), and then you complain about the average American food?

Duh. You can just buy the stuff that the poor can't afford, and everyone wins. Alternatively you can do a bit of research (this new "internet" helps a lot) and you can find, at reasonable price, both excellent things in great variety (in a bigger city), or at least some great local specialties (almost anywhere).

Also I've been to Poland and ate cabbage soup and meat rolls for a week, so I think I've got a pretty good idea of what passes for "good" for you. (Had a "burrito" in Krakow, pretty much the oddest thing I've eaten. Cabbage needs to stay out of a burrito).

What, you couldn't be bothered to drive the five minutes from your hotel to find something other than Wendy's/McDonald's/Burger King? I've been all over the US and each region always manages to have a specialty that you can't find anywhere else in the world. If you think American food is abysmal then you didn't look real hard.

For something edible, you need to look into something italian/chinese/etc.

Italian-American food != Italian food. I have been to both places. I'll take the American take on pizza (particularly from the Northeast) over anything I tried in Italy. Mind you

According to Michelin, there are more three star restaurants in New York than Rome. In any case it is pathetic that you think you can judge and an entire continent-spanning nation of hundreds of millions based on whatever handful of random restaurants you happened upon. Grow up.

He didn't try a handful of "random" restaurants. He tried a few restaurants within walking distance of a university. I don't think any of the best restaurants in my city are anywhere near any university. The available clientel doesn't seem to be able to afford or care for real food.

I know of a few good restaurants near the University of Washington and Seattle University, but there too if you're motivated by price chances are you get what you pay for.

Just the thought makes me homesick for The Continental on University (and makes me want to punch all the dicks on Yelp who can't even spell fucking 'tzatziki' but think they know shit about Greek food and sully The Continental's ratings). That and Taste of India on Roosevelt... my wife and I used to go there practically just for the chai

But no... now I'm stuck on the East Coast where apparently only three people know how to cook fish.

The problem is that good fish is so expensive here; it's easy to get priced out of restaurants that know how to do it well.

I live in central-northern NJ, quite a bit inland... and there are at least 5 restaurants near me with good fish... if you're willing to pay $40 a plate. Down the shore, there are good fish spots that are cheaper, but I'm not going to drive an hour just for dinner.

Cooking fresh fish is a lot of work... and I spend 3 hours a day commuting, I don't have the energy. However your correlation seems correct, the few places I've found that know what they're doing are ~$20+ a plate. But then at prices like that you'd damn well better know what you're doing.

You ever get out to Neah Bay and have some salmon fresh and still warm out of a Makah smoker? That stuff is as good as the salad in When Harry Met Sally. You will not find salmon prepared better anywhere in the world, an

"Actually, after visiting the US, I'd say the food there is abysmal. For something edible, you need to look into something italian/chinese/etc."

You obviously have never been to or stayed in New Orleans.

Definitely GOOD food down here...

Heck, where I live, there really hardly is any commercial fast food places near where I live....Only like one Burger King within miles of me, but plenty of good local restaurants of all kinds, ethnic and NOLA style stuff.

I'm not sure if there is such a thing as "American Food" ? It's all stolen from other Countries and Cultures.

Good food can be found in most non-franchise diners/grills/pub/deli/cafe. Franchised restaraunts are nearly identical to each other.. so if you find a meal you like from a franchise store, you can pretty much find that exact meal in the surrounding towns/states.

My time spent in Germany is similar to yours. Most of the food was good. But there was also little variation and each place had virtually

I'm not sure if there is such a thing as "American Food"? It's all stolen from other Countries and Cultures.

Amazingly, you can trace the theft of cuisine all the way back to cultures without writing, then the trail goes cold. Originality is nine parts mists of forgetting. But I think you can fairly credit America for Tang and Velveeta.

Lavender contains high levels of phytoestrogens, so high that a bath product that overconcentrated their lavender extracts was causing peripheral precocious puberty in children and was acting like topical HRT to males. For some reason I can't paste the link into this box (it's a chrome/slashdot problem), but if you search for lavender precocious on google the second result details the occurrence. In any case, this endocrinological aspect may be the key to interpreting the results.

How the hell do you measure how boneriffic a boner is? Seriously. And does the pie increase sex drive, or are we secretly all harboring a fetish for pie eating? Maybe the secret is men should have sex with pies from now on. I've never tried it, but I do know pumpkin pie is delicious. Or maybe pumpkin pie works for this purpose because it's generally given out during Thanksgiving, which is supposed to be a place of calm, and what not. Or, pie brings happiness. Does pie make you happy? It makes me happy. And

...there must be some other kind of stimulus that they're missing. Maybe the chick serving them pumpkin pie is cuter than the other girls. Maybe the pumpkin pie reminds them of their mothers? Hey Oedipus - want another slice of pie? Sproing!!!

The linked study is from 1998. It is unclear if the news source was responding to some follow-up research that was published, or (more likely) was searching the archives for some holiday-related news on a slow news day.

There is only one food item that has ever aroused me: cinnamon. Many of my male friends feel the same way about that spice. Perhaps it's the abundance of cinnamon in most pumpkin pie that's the culprit?